If only all of Puerto Rico were as “white” and generic-looking as this vintage souvenir doll purports its citizens to be, maybe Trump and his MAGA maggots wouldn’t have gotten so worked up over Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl.

“No lo creo”

Foreigners

Stored in my basement in a large plastic box filled with vintage foreign dolls is this 1964 Puerto Rican souvenir doll with the same Anglican face and features as the ones I got from Holland or Scotland, just exchanging a Dutch bonnet or plaid Tam O’Shanter for a raffia straw hat.

Whether to Paris or Port-au-Prince, an elegant steamship was my grandmother’s and great-aunt’s transportation of choice. The top shelves of my childhood white bedroom hutch were lined with dozens of souvenir dolls in assorted national costumes, a display that was a testament to the world travelers these ladies were.

Tokens from their many trips, these foreign dolls, like the cruise ships themselves, exuded a stately formality. With their aloof bisque faces, stiff bodies, and exotic clothes, they seemed inaccessible, never to be played with, so unlike my familiar cuddly American dolls. Ironically, those native souvenir dolls were more than likely made by silent women sitting in a loft on the fringes of the Bronx, just as my all-American Tiny Tears was made in Japan.

Despite being an American citizen, Miss Puerto Rico, purchased by my Nana Rose along with a decorative straw handbag at a port of call in Old San Juan, joined the other international dolls on my bookshelf, where she stayed for my entire childhood.

She never ventured off her shelf to play with my All-American dolls. Barbie never offered an invitation to her upscale Dream House for an overnight slumber party. No shared rides in her pink convertible. There were no soda shop invites from Midge or Alan. Ken wisely kept his distance. Patty Playpal never thought to offer her a play date, and Chatty Cathy was uncharacteristically mum. Miss Puerto Rico remained eternally removed from the mainland of my bedroom.  

Well, who would have guessed a few decades later, after being snubbed by Barbie, that Barbie herself would come out as a Boricua (a Puerto Rican born on the island )

In 1996, Barbie morphed into “Puerto Rican Barbie’ as part of Mattel’s “Dolls for the World” line. She lived in a box that said in English and Spanish, “Hola I live in Puerto Rico a beautiful place often called the island of enchantment.”

The señorita got mixed reactions.

While Barbie was received enthusiastically in Puerto Rico, it caused a heated debate among Puerto Ricans in the U.S. Mainland.

Many found her objectionable on several counts. She was too white. Though a step up from my souvenir doll, many felt “The Puerto Rican Barbie” was “an anglicized image of what we’re supposed to be like.”

History

Then some bristled at the history lesson on the back of the doll’s box. Coming on the eve of the 100^th anniversary of the Spanish-American War, which ended with Spain ceding Puerto Rico to the US, it offered a whitewashed history of Puerto Rico and its colonization.

 “Puerto Rico was granted permission to write our own constitution in 1952, and since then, we have governed ourselves.” The phrasing was seen as condescending and not all politically honest.

The box’s ethnic origin story also raised eyebrows.

The Barbie package describes Puerto Rico as being ”discovered in 1493 by Christopher Columbus, who claimed it for Spain.” Critics said this totally ignores the island’s original inhabitants, the Tainos, an Indian people now extinct. It connotes that all Puerto Ricans are fundamentally European and pushes the influence of Natives and Africans to the back of the bus.

It seems that when it comes to history, Puerto Rican Barbie shares a lot in common with her mainland sister, Mayflower Barbie.